The summer of 2017 has featured much less prolonged, widespread warmth and fewer dry stretches than the summer of 2016 across the eastern United States, which was expected going in and has eased the burden on farmers and water resources across the region. As of this writing, only small portions of Maine, Long Island, and parts of Virginia are in the “abnormally dry” category on the drought monitor, which is a vast improvement to last summer when large portions of the Northeast saw a moderate to severe (and in a few cases extreme) drought develop.

It's that time of year again...the leaves are changing, the football season is heating up and it's also WeatherWorks Winter Forecast time! Let's begin by taking a brief look at ENSO, or the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Last winter, the focus of our forecast was El Niño (anomalous warmth in equatorial Pacific Ocean waters), which was among the strongest in recorded history. That gave us high confidence in a fairly mild winter with the potential for one or two bigger storms. For the most part, that's pretty much what happened.